Dear most Muslims, the snake won't die because you wish it dead
An unknown gunman holding hostage an unknown number of people inside the Lindt cafe in Sydney has split the world into three. On one side are a very small number of people doing horrible things in the name of Islam. On another are a larger number of people saying horrible things about Islam. The third are the kind who say stupid things just to not appear as defaming Islam. They are harmlessly harmful, because what they say does appear harmless but is not.
They think if they say something slightly damaging about religion, they will vilify the entire community that follows the particular faith. Though the majority who follow a faith, any faith, do so without any serious consideration for every little thing the faith requires them to do. If they come to notice the horrible things about their own faith, they prefer to ignore it. Some choose to even go out and denounce the part without renouncing everything else. There are very few people who think that every little detail in the book is fundamental to the faith and are rightly called fundamentalists.
Let us face it. Islam, like other faiths carried over from centuries ago, has many elements that people living in the 21st century find difficult to digest. So they do not ingest it. We call them the silent majority, the moderate Muslims. The fundamentalists like the safety in numbers, 1.6 billion and growing, but do not really like them and think they are the scum defiling their pure faith. Moderates think about the fundamentalists in the same way. The disgust is mutual.
A tinier part of the tiny fundamentalist population is that of violent extremists. They make the most noise because, let us face it, the sound of bombs and guns does dominate all else, including that of prayers on the loudspeaker. They strike terror in the hearts of the world, not only the infidels. They kill at will. Their will is to die. Hence, the lone wolf is not worried when he wields a machete in New York or a handgun in Martin's Place in Sydney. The lone wolf, who led a virtual pack from Bengaluru because he thought he was doing an Islamic duty by tweeting instead of actually beheading people as his Islamic duty, is caged but alive. His beheading brothers more likely won’t be for long. There are small wolf packs, of 5 to 10 folks, who would blow up buses in London and trains in Madrid.
The more spectacular the attacks they execute, the greater is the fear of Muslims in these lands. This further alienates Muslims and preachers have more ways to radicalise alienated young men, who blow up buses and trains. This is how the cycle of hatred feeds itself. Prominent Muslim thinkers and leaders keep clarifying that the religion does not teach violence and it falls on deaf ears because the fundamentalists have read more of one book than the many books the thinkers and leaders end up reading. They know the liberal Muslim leadership has lied to the world and nothing would stop it from lying to them.
This is where the harmlessly harmful politically correct people grow restless and come out with their stupidity. They would stand with the liberal Muslim voices as if they understood Islam better than the fundamentalists. The fundamentalists have an "I-told-you-so" moment every time the non-believing infidel sides with the believing liberal. That makes the moderate Muslim’s position less tenable among the extremist Muslims.
Now switch on the TV and see them waxing eloquent about how religion gives comfort to people and religion has nothing to do with what is happening in Sydney. Really? The Islamic State has nothing to do with religion? No, they say, it’s all about politics. Politics, misguided youth, radicalised engineers, misuse of religion, ignorance of the true faith, Satan’s agents, et cetera. How deep can you push your head back into your own backside?
Just days after they said conversions in Agra had nothing to do with religion but divisive politics of the BJP. The same people would say Muslims and Hindus of Gujarat loved each other and Gujarat riots were a political conspiracy to polarise people. They says Kashmiris love Kashmiriyat and blame terrorism for the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley. That missionaries in tribal areas are there to serve people and not to increase the Christian population, that the 26/11 attack was a dastardly act of proxy war by Pakistan and it had nothing to do with religion. And that terrorism has no religion. Take your head out of that place. Then open your eyes. Boom!
Islamic fundamentalism is at the Level Off With Your Head now. It does not compare with others right now. This is not a local problem anywhere in the world but a global problem. It’s not a problem for the non-Muslim world but the entire world. It is certainly difficult to find a Christian fundamentalist beheading an Indonesian Muslim in Japan for atrocities on Christians in Haiti. Also, try finding a Nepali Hindu holding Muslims hostage in London because Saudi Arabia hanged a Hindu. Khalistani terrorists led a bloody movement for a decade. They still live on in Europe and North America. Yet, you wouldn’t hear of a Sikh going off on a shooting spree in Washington DC to protest Sikhs killed in India.
The victim brotherhood is a phenomenon now associated with Islam. The label is sticking and your fear of being called an Islamophobe is aiding it. Say the truth. Say it like it is. Terrorism has religions. Religions have terrorists. Islam stands at the crossroads and the violent minority is winning the perception game as the silent majority is, well, silent. Tell them, it’s not working. You have the right to call a disease a disease. It does not mean you hate the patient. Criticism of terrorism in the name of Islam is not a criticism of Islam or Muslims. Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, whoever you are, it’s time you stopped the all-faith prayer meetings and started calling a spade a spade. The loonies have hijacked your faith and you have been caught twiddling your thumbs.